Have you heard the slammin’ duet by Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis yet?
It’s like a lot of other country songs that twang about a romance that derailed and now the one who wandered away wants to wander back. But the only problem is the one who was punched in the gut and left with a broken heart has healed enough that he tells the returning wanderer just to keep on wandering.
But before she hits the road again he does stop her on the porch and reminds her that he tried to tell her she was making a big mistake when she wandered away the first time. And since that painful goodbye he has experienced a joyous hello to someone else and the only parting words that he has for her is “I Told You So.”
No way am I suggesting that you have wandered from and now want to wander back, but I am saying that every one of us, at one time or another, has made some pretty dumb decisions. And the last thing we want to hear when we start to eat the plate of crow we have cooked up for ourselves is for someone to remind us that they tried to tell us something that we could only learn on our own.
I sometimes chuckle to myself when I hear someone hint that the stories in the Bible are irrelevant. Because one of the most relevant stories in the Bible is about a man who had two sons.
And the youngest of the two boys got a little bored with his Pappy and testy brother and asked his Pappy if he could cash his inheritance check early. And after he cashed that check and stuffed his wallet, he left so he could sow some wild oats that he had found in the barn.
He smooched the women and danced on about every table that would hold him. He smoked this and chased that. He drank about every type of fire-water he could drink and about the time he lost all of his cash he found some wisdom and decided to go back home. Hopefully there he would be able to work for food and take some time to figure some things out in his heart and his noggin’.
So with an empty wallet and heart he starts toward home not really sure of the response that awaits him. Without doubt while walking he is rehearsing the speech he will recite to his Dad and panics inside when he wonders what he will do if his Pappy lays an “I told you so” line on him.
But the amazing thing is when he is still about a five iron from home he sees his Pappy running toward him. And when they reach each other his Pappy hugs him so tightly he about squeezes the fire-water out of him. And through their tears the boy starts his speech but his Pappy tells him to shush because his very return says things that words can’t.
And before you know it they are eating an ox and dancing on about every table that would hold ‘em and his Pappy never mentions a word about what he may have told him when they were waiting in line to cash that check.
Not to pick on Carrie and Randy because I will bettcha’ you a buck they would both agree with what I am about to tell you.
But please understand that God’s boots will never dance to that song nor will he ever hum that tune while he bandages your wounds.
Oh, for sure you are going to need to come to your senses in the same way the wanderers I have mentioned did. But no matter what you have done….or what you have said….or where you have gone….he will never throw it in your face or play the “told you so” card that we so often discard.
Fact is….he will never bring the topic up again and you just remember I told you so.
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